HONOLULU (AP) — Negotiations went down to the wire as nearly 13,000 public school teachers and 3,100 University of Hawaii faculty members threatened to walk out Thursday and shut down the state’s entire public education system. A strike would close
HONOLULU (AP) — Negotiations went down to the wire as nearly 13,000 public school teachers and 3,100 University of Hawaii faculty members threatened to walk out Thursday and shut down the state’s entire public education system.
A strike would close school campuses on Kaua’i and other Hawaiian Islands. In all, 182,328 public school students and 41,933 university students would be affected. Parents and schools have been scrambling to find alternatives for their children.
“We are going to get back together to make one more stab to see if we can work it out,” said Hawaii State Teachers Association executive director Joan Husted. “I’m personally not very optimistic.”
Both Husted and the state’s chief negotiator, Davis Yogi, said the two sides remain far apart on salary, the only remaining issue to be resolved.
But Yogi said he remains hopeful.
The two sides resumed negotiations at 3 p.m. Wednesday.
Gov. Ben Cayetano said he was leaving the talks to Yogi, but planned to make a statement on the contract dispute Wednesday evening.
“Every person in Hawaii will be affected in some way by a statewide public education strike, making this a time of uncertainty, anxiety and stress for all,” said Paul LeMahieu, superintendent of education.
Hawaii’s teachers earn between $29,000 and $58,000 annually.
The state’s latest offer would give teachers an average 11 percent pay increase over two years, with bigger increases to new teachers to help recruiting in the face of a growing teacher shortage.
The Hawaii State Teachers Association is seeking a package that amounts to a 22 percent increase over four years, retroactive to July 1, 1999, when the previous contract expired.
“That’s the message we have given our teachers (and) the public: If we don’t deal with the shortage today, we don’t pay for education today, we’ll pay for it in the future,” union president Karen Ginoza said as she headed into the final round of negotiations.
The state has offered university faculty a 7 percent pay raise over two years and 3 percent more in possible merit increases. The faculty is seeking a 6 percent increase each year for two years.
“We’re enormously far apart,” said J.N. Musto, executive director of the faculty’s union, the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly, as he prepared to go into a session with federal mediator Carol Catanzariti on Wednesday.
Yogi said the pay part of a UH faculty contract could be closer to settlement than the teachers pact.
“The issues are principle and money, and sometimes principle gets in the way of settling issues,” he said.
Faculty and teacher union leaders said the fact they are threatening to strike the same day is largely a coincidence.
